http://www.roadrunnerreco...mID=121552

I have a book on Donna Summer and it talks about the craziness at Casablanca.Neil Bogart spared no expense promoting his artists,which is one reason why the company practically went broke in 1980.

I am fiending for this ish

scriptgirl said:

me too I hope they turn it into a movie,too.

SoulAlive said:

I can see timmy on the org now spillin all the DRAMA. Lawd I want to read this.

Casablanca's biggest recording artist,Donna Summer,has made some shocking claims about the label.In a 1987 interview,she revealed that they were "bootlegging my records and ripping me off.I didn't find out about this until many years later".

This will be a good read.

I wanna check this out, especially the Donna Summer parts.

purplecam said:

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Pick up the the book

HitMen the book has a whole chapter on this corrupt ass label

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I have to grab this!!!





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Didn't NEil Bogart die of cancer at a really early age?

scriptgirl said:

He died of cancer and lymphoma at age 39.

SoulAlive said:

Sounds VERY believable. I know Raynoma Gordy did this w/ Motown material and got busted/arrested too. I've heard of it w/ other artists and labels. There were several sophisticated ways to do this other than just selling them outta the trunk of your car a la Raynoma.

SoulAlive said:

Yeah, Gene Simmons of KISS, the first band signed to Casablanca along with Parliament being second, was slated to do a film about this YEARS ago. But it fell through for some reason. But Gene had or was trying to buy the rights to it and produce it. Again, this was years ago. Casablanca is my all time favorite label. I adored this label when I was a kid. It had all of my fave artists,..KISS, Parliament, Donna Summer. I will DEFINATELY be getting this.
[Edited 6/19/09 16:29pm]

Co-sign. All of my favorite acts were on this label back in the day..(and yeah The Village People hits were spun back then too in my snot nosed days).

Melissa Ethridge said she used to be an intern at Casablanca. She said the tables would be piled high with coke, mirrors, ludes and any other type of drug you can think of. She said mostly everyone that worked there (employees and some of the artists) were gay. She said she had a lot of fun there.

The guys that co-wrote this book wrote a juicy and informative tell all book on KISS (on the road) a few years ago, so it doesn't surprise me that they assisted with this.

I wonder if Gene Simmons is going to sue because of the title? Can't wait to read it.

SPYZFAN1 said:

I'm sayin'... he can get money out of anything

Jesus Christ, how many fucking relatives does Berry Gordy have? 500?

scriptgirl said:

Raynoma was Berry's 2nd wife and co-founder of Motown. However, he had around 8 siblings, plus their spouses, tons of nieces and nephews, and tons of kids/baby mamas....almost all of whom, including his parents, worked at Motown over the years.

Jesus Christ

Motown really was a family business. That's why the ripoffs were so extreme and the artists so bitter. The Gordy's ran a tight ship.

n example of the craziness that went on at Casablanca:

Neil Bogart habitually misled the public and industry about Casablanca's sales.For instance,when Cher had a hit single on Casablanca with her 1979 disco tune "Take Me Home",Bogart appeared on late-night television and presented her with a gold record (signifying sales in excess of one million copies).But the truth was that the record had sold fewer than 700,000 copies.To cover Bogart's tracks,Casablanca was forced to press 300,000 more copies of the single and ship them to stores,even though the song had already peaked and was falling down the charts.

That's insane-no wonder they went out of business. Does anyone know the exact addy of Casablanca's location in LA?

SoulAlive said:

Gold records could literally be just that, a recod painted gold! They really meant nothing cuz companies often fudged the numbers, even if they were RIAA registered. Y'all heard the soties about the Osmonds and their people buying tons of their own product to push it up the charts? Dunno if it was true, but sounds perfectly typical.

scriptgirl http://www.disco-disco.co...anca.shtml the old mailing addy/physical location is at this link.
[Edited 6/19/09 20:58pm]

brooksie said:

Some Motown artists discovered that. Marvin was giving a "gold record" for "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You", when he turned it around, it was a gold-sprayed Supremes 45!

Thanks, Brooksie